The Not So Great Islamist Menace
By Dan Gardner,
Ottawa
January 5, 2011
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/great+Islamist+menace/4058778/story.html
If someone mentioned terrorism in Europe, you would
probably have an idea about the size of the threat and
who's responsible.
It's big, you would think. And growing. As for who's
responsible, that's obvious. It's Muslims. Or if you're
a little more careful with your language, it's radical
Muslims, or "Islamists."
After all, they were at it again just in the past
month. On Dec. 11, a 28-year-old naturalized Swede --
originally from Iraq -- injured two people when he blew
himself up on the way to a shopping district. And on
Dec. 29, police in Denmark said they thwarted a plan by
five Muslims to storm the office of a Danish newspaper
and kill as many people as possible.
So the danger is big and growing, and Islamists are the
source. Right?
Wrong, actually.
The European Union's Terrorism Situation and Trend
Report 2010 states that in 2009 there were "294 failed,
foiled, or successfully executed attacks" in six
European countries. This was down almost one-third from
the total in 2008 and down by almost one-half from the
total in 2007.
So in most of Europe, there was no terrorism. And where
there was terrorism, the trend line pointed down.
As for who's responsible, forget Islamists. The
overwhelming majority of the attacks-- 237 of 294 --
were carried out by separatist groups, such as the
Basque ETA. A further 40 terrorists schemes were pinned
on leftist and/or anarchist terrorists. Rightists were
responsible for four attacks. Single-issue groups were
behind two attacks, while responsibility for a further
10 was not clear.
Islamists? They were behind a grand total of one
attack. Yes, one. Out of 294 attacks. In a population
of half a billion people. To put that in perspective,
the same number of attacks was committed by the Comité
d'Action Viticole, a French group that wants to stop
the importation of foreign wine.
Now, I don't want to overdo the point. Europe has major
problems with the integration of its Muslim populations
and the threat of Islamist terrorism is real. It's also
important to note that the number of attacks does not
indicate the full extent of the danger, since
Islamists, unlike most terrorists, seek to commit
indiscriminate slaughter.
But even with these caveats, the data clearly
demonstrate that common perceptions about terrorism in
Europe are wrong. To see why that matters, think back
to 2005.
When rioting exploded in France's heavily-immigrant
suburbs, many conservative pundits dismissed claims
that the violence had something to do with poverty,
unemployment, and exclusion. No, what mattered is that
the rioters were Muslim.
"This is an early skirmish in the Eurabian civil war,"
wrote Mark Steyn in the Daily Telegraph. "If the
insurgents emerge emboldened, what next? In five years'
time, there will be even more of them, and even less
resolve on the part of the French state. That, in turn,
is likely to accelerate the demographic decline. Europe
could face a continentwide version of the "white
flight" phenomenon seen in crime-ridden American cities
during the 1970s, as Danes and Dutch scram to America,
Australia, or anywhere else that will take them."
Steyn noted that his gloomy British readers often sent
him e-mails that ended with the observation
"fortunately I won't live to see it." Steyn snatched
away even this cold comfort. "As France this past
fortnight reminds us, the changes in Europe are
happening far faster than most people thought," he
wrote. "Unless you're planning on croaking immediately,
you will live to see it."
In 2006, Steyn expanded his jeremiad into the book
America Alone. It was a huge hit, a New York Times
bestseller, and its influence among conservatives --
Americans in particular -- is hard to overstate. Even
George W. Bush is a fan. In Republican and Tea Party
circles, Steyn's vision of an enfeebled, infertile
Europe overrun by fecund, violent Muslims is almost a
truism.
But half a decade has passed since Steyn declared the
outbreak of the "Eurabian civil war." And yet, there
are no waves of bombings. No armies of bug-eyed
jihadis. No pale-faced boat people bobbing about the
North Atlantic in rusty scows.
Oh, there are incidents. I cited two above. And for
people like Steyn, that is more than enough. Tell a
true story; treat it as typical; draw a scary
conclusion: This is the standard operating procedure of
alarmists.
Steyn hates to be called an alarmist, as he made clear
in the preface to a later edition of America Alone. He
is merely a realist, he says. But then he goes on to
write this: "In 2007, some larky lads were arrested in
Germany. Another terrorist plot." What set this one
apart were the terrorists' names. They weren't
Mohammed, or Muhammad, or Mahmoud. They were "Fritz"
and "Daniel." Why, they were ... deep breath ...
native-born Muslim converts! "All over the world, there
are young men raised in the ‘Multi-Kulti-Haus' of the
West who decide their highest ambition is to convert to
Islam, become a jihadist, and self-detonate."
That year happened to be a particularly bad one for
Islamist terrorism in Europe. There were four Islamist
attacks. Four. Out of a total of 583.
The following year there were zero. In 2009, as we have
seen, there was one.
Mark Steyn has a new book in the works, apparently.
Something to do with the end of civilization. Given his
track record, this is grounds for optimism.
Dan Gardner's column appears Wednesday and Friday in
the Citizen and National Post.